LUTHMANN NOTE: Family court is where due process goes to get billed by the hour. George Kostakis did not come on this show because it was easy. He came on because, after years of orders, therapists, evaluators, lawyers, continuances, and bills, he says he has almost nothing left to lose. That is when the truth starts moving from hidden to revealed. Dr. David Finn and Mark Hagler are not just names in one Cook County case. They are symbols of a system parents fear: court-appointed power, endless delay, and professionalized family destruction. Children pay the price. Parents pay the bill. This piece is “Chicago Family Court Horrors,” first available on TheFamilyCourtCircus.com.
By Richard Luthmann
(CHICAGO, ILLINOIS) – Richard Luthmann and Jill Jones Soderman went into the belly of the family court beast, where ordinary parents say they are turned into revenue streams, children become leverage, and the people appointed to “help” often end up holding the keys to the parent-child relationship.
This episode focuses on the case of George Kostakis, a Cook County, Illinois father who says he has spent more than a decade trapped in a family court maze. According to Kostakis, the case began in 2015 and has dragged through multiple judges, multiple lawyers, multiple court-appointed professionals, multiple therapists, child representatives, evaluators, supervised visitation, reunification therapy, and still no final parenting agreement.
Kostakis estimates that lawyers alone have cost more than $100,000, while evaluators, therapists, child representatives, and other court-connected professionals have cost at least another $50,000. As Luthmann puts it, money that could have gone to a child’s future instead went into the family court furnace.
The central figure in the episode is Dr. David Finn, an Illinois psychologist and custody evaluator whose work has drawn criticism from parents and advocates. Luthmann introduces Finn as a symbol of the court-appointed professional class: experts who are recommended by other court insiders, then given enormous power over custody, visitation, therapy, and parental access. Kostakis says Finn was recommended by the child representative and that his evaluation became a gatekeeping mechanism over George’s relationship with his daughter.
The money issue is front and center. The discussion breaks down the evaluation fee structure, including hourly charges, testing costs, document review, collateral interviews, and report fees. Kostakis says the evaluation was supposed to move quickly but dragged on for years, causing costs to balloon. He says the process included computer-based testing, interviews, child observation, and document review, but he claims that key collateral interviews with grandparents, relatives, and other family witnesses were never conducted.
The episode then turns to Mark Hagler, the therapist Kostakis says was supposed to handle reunification therapy. Kostakis describes the sessions as unnatural, degrading, and coercive. He alleges that Hagler controlled the room, told him what to say, yelled at him in front of his daughter, and created a dynamic that undermined George’s role as a father. Kostakis says the experience made him feel “beaten up” and forced into compliance, not supported as a parent trying to rebuild a relationship.
Jill Jones Soderman, founder and executive director of the Foundation for the Child Victims of the Family Courts, has been on the front lines of her share of Chicago family court horrors with Dr. Finn. She joined the stream to provide the national frame. Soderman argues that what happened to Kostakis fits a broader pattern: family courts using court-appointed evaluators, child representatives, therapists, parental-alienation narratives, and reunification programs to control families while extracting money.
She sharply rejects the idea that forced reunification should be called “therapy,” arguing that true therapy requires trust, confidentiality, dignity, and voluntary participation. In her view, court-mandated reunification can become a system of discipline, coercion, and financial pressure.
Luthmann presses the larger point: family courts should be resolving custody and parenting disputes, not creating an endless pipeline of professionals who profit from delay. In Kostakis’s case, the discussion raises the issue of one court-appointed professional recommending another, then another, until the parent is surrounded by expensive gatekeepers. The stream asks whether this is justice, treatment, or a court-sanctioned business model.
The episode also touches on enforcement failures. Kostakis says a court order may say he has parenting time, but police often tell him they cannot enforce it and that he must go back to court. That creates the classic family court trap: a parent has an order on paper, but no meaningful remedy in real life. The parent is told to file motions, hire lawyers, pay therapists, appear in court, and wait—while the child grows older and the relationship deteriorates.
This stream is not just about George Kostakis. It is about the national family court horror show. It is about parents who enter court expecting justice and leave broke, broken, and alienated from their children. It is about children caught between parents, judges, therapists, evaluators, and court insiders. It is about the hidden economy of family court: billing, reports, continuances, supervised visitation, reunification, expert testimony, and professional recommendations that can shape a child’s life.
Luthmann, Kostakis, and Soderman deliver a warning: once the family court machine locks onto a family, the process itself becomes punishment. The bill keeps growing. The hearings keep continuing. The professionals keep collecting. The child keeps aging. And the parent keeps being told the same thing: pay, comply, apologize, and wait.
